September 16, 1986: A new generation of gay youth.

Today, the landscape for gay and lesbian youth is vastly different than it was even a decade and a half ago. As Advocate reporter Mike Hippler reported, gay teens in 1986 faced many of the same problems youths did 20 years earlier: isolation, family troubles, and violence. Real differences existed, though--most notably, due to growing up in the age of AIDS. According to author R. Hunter Morey, "Many [youths] know very little about the disease, and what they do know is frightening--which makes coming out today more traumatic than it ever was." John Gonsiorek of the Minnesota Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Youth said, "There is less emphasis on sex for its own sake. Even if there were no AIDS, I doubt that this generation would establish backroom bars, for instance."

Another difference was the growing number of gay youth organizations that had been founded since the early 1980s, including the Institute for the Protection of Gay and Lesbian Youth (later the Hetrick-Martin Institute) in New York. Still, many kids lacked access to services due to geographical constraints.

"The greatest hope for gay youths may lie within themselves," Hippler wrote. Gonsiorek added, "The greatest strength is that they are more supportive of one another than the Stonewall generation. They are more pragmatic."

Find this 1986 Advocate article on gay youth in its entirety at www.advocate.com